XxXxXxX

"Fucking mech warrior wannabe! I'm going to dust him and that fucking whore of his! I'm going to turn everything that he loves into fucking ashes!" Shigaraki raged in a hospital bed as the good old professor came to examine if his injuries were healing properly.

"Now, now. I'm sure that your anger is rightful but you shouldn't move so much as of yet. It's good that Kurogiri managed to catch you into a warp gate just in time, otherwise you would have to worry about more than twenty two broken bones and some lacerations." The older man commented, checking on the monitoring equipment.

"You're lucky that Sensei wants you alive! It was your fucking toy that caused this!" Focusing on his visitor, the young villain shouted at him with bloodshot eyes.

"It was Sensei's decision to increase the power output of that weapon to sucha degree, but I agree that it shouldn't be so devastating." Not minding the sudden aggression, the bald doctor continued his work. "After reviewing the footage that was recovered, I can say with certainty that it wasn't the fault of the rail cannon. Literally a few microseconds before firing, the recoil dampener mechanism was destroyed by a few high caliber rounds. The fact that it caused the whole ship to be ripped in half is quite fascinating, even if it sets our work back quite a bit…"

Hearing that the doors to the room opened, the older man stopped his ramblings and turned his attention to the newcomer.

"Hello Tomura, how are you feeling?" All for One asked, entering the room with a smirk.

"I… I failed again… " The addressed man quietly replied, no hint of his previous anger to be seen.

"I wouldn't call that whole ordeal a complete failure, my boy." The tall, white haired man replied with a chuckle. "You lost a battle, yes. But that battle opened a few new routes not available to us before."

"It was the fault of that mech! If only he wouldn't show up… we would have recovered that Yakuza boss and his goons without an issue!" Shigaraki grumbled but was only met with yet another chuckle from his master.

"You are right. Losing such a quirk like Overhaul is quite a tragedy but not the end of the world. I fought against that mechanized hero once before and barely lived to tell the tale." AfO confessed to the younger man's disbelief.

"Y-you nearly lost? But sensei! That's not possible!"

"Well… where do you think I gained this little thing?" The white haired man asked, raising his left arm. The barely audible whine of machinery accompanied the gesture, the green and black colours shining in the artificial light of the room.

"I always thought that this was one of your quirks…" The younger man mumbled out, taking a closer look at his master's presented arm.

"Hmm… you could say that. This thing here works only because of a few quirks in my possession but it's the arm of the same individual that you refer to as the Mech Warrior, fascinating little thing." He chuckled, flexing the artificial limb a little. "I recovered it after our battle concluded, deciding that it would make quite a nice trophy." He smiled, clenching the metallic fingers into a fist. "But that's a story for another time. I am here to read some of your memories, I hope you don't mind?" Letting his prosthetic fall back to his side he directed his grin at his immobilized at the moment pupil.

"Of course! Go ahead, Sensei!" Eagerly giving his consent, Shigaraki immediately seemed to look less stressed.

Putting his flesh and blood hand on the younger man's forehead, All for One grinned slightly.

This development wasn't that bad at all.

XxX

Humanity escaping Earth to live between the stars.

Such a grand idea that it would be laughed off as nothing more than a delusion.

Nothing more than a dream.

But then THEY appeared.

First as nothing more than a shadow on the radio telescopes, an anomaly.

Next, they were entering the atmosphere somewhere around the South America continent. An uproar followed, extraterrestrial life crash landing on our humble blue sphere.

Then panic, the visitors turning out to be a swarm of car sized, man eating bugs.

Slowly but surely the military was getting pushed back. The widely used energy weapons proved ineffective, laser cannons capable of melting through companies of tanks barely able to kill single enemies. Maybe if the reaction would be faster, then they would be able to contain those beasts, but that's just a guess. Like always, the world leaders couldn't come to an agreement fast enough. Civilians acted like children, calling for 'rights' for the newcomers.

South America became inaccessible after nine months. Waves of refugees were trying to escape, millions of people moving to the old continent in panic as thousands of soldiers from the United Nations were sent to a slaughter to buy as much time as they could.

It took only two and a half years for the whole of America to be lost. Even after using high yield nuclear weapons humanity wasn't able to withstand the assault, running away with its tail between the legs.

After all that a relatively long period of 'peace' followed.

The Beings of Extra Terrestrial origin which are Adversary to life, human or otherwise. That was the full name of our enemies, otherwise known as BETA.

For a few decades nothing happened. The aliens didn't leave the continent, building enormous hive-like structures. They consumed all organic life while trampling any infrastructure that human civilization created. Enormous cities like Washington, Los Angeles or New York turned to nothing more than a sea of rubble and dust. At some point they even started to send some kind of vessels into deep space, creating even more panic at their apparent technological prowess.

Then, nearly sixty years after the first contact, something changed. An epidemic started to spread across the populace. The already horrid conditions of the overpopulated cities and refugee settlements didn't help, millions dying in their homes or shelters often without any help.

The already dwindling numbers of our species plummeted, only one in a thousand surviving the strange disease.

As if waiting for the worst possible moment, the BETA that were until now content with staying on their continent started showing up in Europe, sailing on what looked to be living ships. They still couldn't survive underwater but the sole fact that they were trying to reach us only added to the decreasing morale of the people. A few larger 'fleets' managed to reach the coastline, resulting in heavy battles each time.

In one of those skirmishes something unbelievable happened. One of the french soldiers used what's to be believed as the first of meta abilities, scorching his enemies with concentrated streams of fire coming from his feet.

It may be something unthinkable, probably sounding like a joke. That wasn't a single case though.

Humans of all ages and races started to develop super powers. Telekinesis, flight, super strength or speed. Nobody could tell where they came from. What was the cause.

Those abilities aren't that common though, they are in fact quite rare. Only around five people in a hundred develop any sort of meta ability, most of them are from the newest generation.

In an attempt to keep people safer, large walls were created around the main cities. The already nearly empty smaller towns and villages were deserted in favor of living in the relative safety of the enormous forts.

I grew up in one of those cities, believing like everyone else that we were safe. Even being an orphan I could still believe in the strength of our walls. Walls that defended us for years.

I had more than enough time to rethink that. Trapped under the wreckage of my home I could only helplessly listen to the death of everybody I knew.

It was the first time I met HIM.

For a long time I didn't even know his real name. Only what everybody knew him as.

Knight, the hero and defender of Ark Thirteen. Together with his squad he performed missions categorized as suicidal, always returning in triumph.

It didn't take long for such an individual to become a symbol. In the eyes of normal people that man was nearly like a guardian deity, an impenetrable shield that pushed away any attack that came their way be it from BETA or any other threat.

Then the day off The Siege happened.

A sudden surge of BETA, hundreds of thousands of car sized insectoids marching at the city defended by around sixty combat capable meta humans and maybe three thousand guardsmen.

The distress signal was sent, the forces were mobilized. Situation looked grim, the closest Ark city that was willing to help nearly a day of travel away.

As expected, the Defender deployed. He marched off to face the threat head on, his massive armor shining in the sunlight like a beacon of hope to everyone that saw it that day.

I was on the walls when one of the scout vehicles belonging to his squad barreled down the road to the gate. It was smoking and heavily damaged, its light armor covered in gashes. A few of the enemies were following it, as damaged if not more.

Everyone started to panic, thinking that all was lost if even the Knight fell.

BETA showed up in dozens, the thundering of cannons and machine guns drowning out any other noise.

Soon an hour of battle turned to two, then three, then five and ten. Before we knew it the dawn arrived, lighting up the surrounding stretch of land, with thousands of alien corpses strewn across. The defensive walls were breached at some point, a few of the monsters managing to get to the terrified civilians that we were supposed to protect.

Shortly after that the Royal Guard arrived, being the main force that responded to the threat. It took a few hours more for the enemies to stop coming, the Ark surviving only because of the support.

More than twenty four hours after their departure another scouting party was sent after the Knight's team.

When the brave guardsmen arrived at the last known location they witnessed hell on earth. A literal sea of BETA killed and destroyed was before them, hundreds of thousands of enemies that could have swallowed the city if they had the chance.

In the middle of all of that a small pillar of smoke was rising from a lone humanoid figure. It was battered and covered in the pieces of the alien creatures. Large gashes were in its impressive armor, its limbs mangled beyond repair.

Against all odds it was still active, crawling on the ground with its sword. A large BETA variant never seen before was trying to run away, only to be impaled by the steel giant's weapon.

That day was celebrated as a crushing victory of the human race against our alien invaders.

XxX

As the white haired woman continued her story, Kayama Nemuri couldn't be more dumbfounded. Being one of the people that weren't informed about the possible origin of the steel giant, nor the visitors from another dimension, her only thought was that all of this sounded like a plot of a movie or one of the novels in her personal library.

Taking a glance around the gathered people, nobody seemed to take it that lightly though. Yaoyorozu looked nearly transfixed on the screen, not moving even in the slightest. Shield wasn't any better, hell, even Hatsume wasn't trying to detonate them all at the moment.

"The victory wasn't that clean though. The moment that Knight's armor was recovered nobody was sure how it was able to function for so long or with the damages it sustained. It took nearly four days to cut him out of it, his body fusing with the machinery in a way that even meta abilities couldn't dream of. That was the day when Izuku Midoriya lost his body, From the twelve person squad, only Knight and Tiger Rabbit made it out alive, the former losing her legs and an arm because of the damage. City walls were destroyed beyond repair, breached in multiple places." The adult version of the small horned girl continued, not even giving them any time to digest the information she dropped.

"Dear God…" The 18 heroine breathed out, her eyes widening at the few pictures of carnage and destruction that were shown. The rest reacted in a similar way.

With a loud clatter Momo discarded her weapon that she still held in one hand to this point. She took a step closer as the picture of still human Izuku showed up, followed by a military green mech as it marched into the distance and then his more familiar for her mechanical body.

"Izuku… No…" The narrating woman hesitated, looking to the side for a few seconds as if she was unsure how to continue. "No. At that time only Knight returned to his duties… He worked day and night like… like a machine. His meta ability took over the experimental medical nano machines that were used as emergency first aid in the cockpit of his mech, doing much more than just on site first aid. It allowed him to cheat death but when I met him a few days later he seemed…empty." Once more a bit of emotion flashed on the woman's face, recounting all of this clearly not one of the most pleasant things for her.

"That battle was a turning point, one of those moments in history where you can say with certainty 'it all began here'. BETA started attacking en masse, hordes of them showing regularly at our doorsteps. Slowly we went from living to surviving, losing ground witch each attack. It was then that the idea of escaping Earth was proposed."

"That doesn't sound possible… Even if the population dropped to one percent there still would be around seven hundred million people to accommodate…" Luna pointed out, looking to her blonde mother for an answer but the recording gave it first.

"At first it was rebuffed, the old people in charge shooting the idea down when they learned that only around fifteen thousand young adults and teenagers could be saved that way because of the needed genetic diversity to start a colony. The Royal family overruled them however, for once people in charge seeing the impending doom and deciding that the future of mankind was more important than them. Planet Kepler-69C was selected as the destination, being the furthest away from our solar system that we could reach with the technology of that time. It was chosen with hope that the BETA wouldn't be able to follow, or at least it would give the humanity enough time to prepare for the eventual second…"

"Alright, alright! That's enough." Suddenly another female voice interrupted from off screen, the white haired woman looking to her left with a puzzled expression.

"What? But I barely began!" She replied, furrowing her brows. "What about the following battles? The forming of the Royal Legion? What about the Empress?!" The horned woman asked, only increasing the curiosity of everyone gathered.

"For starters, if there is anyone on the other side you probably distracted them long enough at this point." The mysterious voice declared, making all the watching people nervous. "According to my predictions the Nano Forge should be done with analyzing Izuku's body and gathering data in right about… now."

As if it was waiting for that word the otherworldly device let out a deep mechanical whine, a transparent dome of energy covering it together with the damaged Titan.

"Nezu! What in the world is happening?! Shouldn't we escort everyone out?!" Midnight called, her instincts reacting to the unknown.

"Keep calm. I believe that there is no threat to us." The principal replied, curiously observing how the metallic cube split horizontally, spewing a large cloud of dust that immediately covered Knight's body.

"Secondly, our time is running out. There's no need for you to preach about everything right now besides, I still wanted to say a few words. Well then… My dear aliens." The second voice started, moving the camera to the side. The form of an elderly woman greeted them, the silver color of her hair was clearly because of her age, a few pale pink locks here and there. Contrary to the advanced age she emanated power and authority, her body was strong and still nimble. A few mechanical arms rose from her back, equipped with all manners of tools.

"I really do hope that you aren't too naughty, or are at least somewhat decent. The man that is beyond this Void Shield is a good friend of mine, we wouldn't want for him to get the bad impression now, would we?" She smiled toothilly into the camera but after a few seconds her face turned down into a scowl.

" To be completely clear, HE. IS. A. MAN! A sentient being like any other! I don't care what your primitive little minds elected to think about him. Think twice about crossing him in any way or Gods help me I'll tear a hole to your reality myself, even if it potentially could make our part of the multiverse collapse on itself." The older woman ranted, starting to type something on a nearby console. "If… If by any chance you are listening to this Izuku… The refugee fleet arrived at its destination as planned, we received a signal from them a few months ago. The limited telemetry we managed to recover shows that only a few vessels received superficial damage, nothing life threatening. There's even a message addressed to you… I'll save it for you on the Nano Forge's data arrays."

"Doesn't this woman look familiar?" Melissa asked, not being able to decide if she should watch the holographic projection or what was happening behind the force field.

"Duh, that's me." Mei replied without hesitation, her the crosshair like irises of her eyes laser focused on the inert Titan.

"Wait, what? I mean… there is some resemblance but… what even is happening right now?" Midnight asked in a slight daze, she wasn't even sure if she wasn't dreaming at the moment.

"I admit, developing new babies without your input became somewhat… dull." The older woman continued, her organic arms together with the robotic ones flying across keyboards without any pause. "It took me nearly six years to be able to send anything after you, punching a hole in between the dimensional planes ain't as easy as they say it is!" The old woman cackled, stopping after a few moments with a deep sigh.

"Unicorn volunteered to follow you, seeing as her meta ability gives the highest survivability. I know that you wouldn't want that but… She knows the risks… You are welcome to slap some sense into me… and her, when you get back to us." She continued with a smile, a small 'Hey!' could be heard in the background from the horned woman from before.

"I don't know how long will it take for this package to reach you. I also don't know if the universe you ended up in is governed by the same laws of nature. It's wholly possible that this Quantum Drive won't be able to decompress anything we squeezed inside. I surely hope that at least the main module survived and is operational. It took quite some time to gather everything but…" A sudden alarm caused the old woman to pause as she looked somewhere to the side.

"Oh… it's time. Transfer will begin in ten minutes, get ready." She ordered the younger woman who went out of the room after saluting with her right fist to her chest.

Letting out a long sigh the strong persona of the older woman on the screen seemed to disappear, like air from a punctured tire.

"This is madness… everything is… everyone looks up to me as if I was some kind of messiah… They agreed to this project because they think I'll bring you back but that's impossible. Even if you would try to build your own transdimensional teleporter it's impossible to track a specific place with our current technology. This thing here is just to make sure you will be able to survive on your own, not magically find your way home… I even wanted to create a different delivery method but those old farts want it to be escorted…" Sighing once more, the old woman on screen massaged the bridge of her nose. "It's really dull without you here, old friend. Maybe one day Gods will forgive us, maybe they allow us to meet once more…"

The sudden shift in the mood created a rather uncomfortable atmosphere. The fact that what they were seeing was addressed to Izuku himself only made everything more awkward, everyone feeling as if they were seeing something they shouldn't have.

Looking to the side at their Hatsume, Midnight was a bit surprised to see a frown on the pink haired girl's face as she was gently hugging the small horned girl. Luna was with them too, awkwardly trying to add to the hug with her own embrace.

Shield looked as if she was done with life, totally opposite to what the eighteen plus heroine thought she would react. The blonde girl leaned against one of the worktables at some point, covering her face with her hands as she listened with everyone to the recording.

Yaoyorozu's mother joined her daughter at some point, embracing the younger girl who clearly needed it.

Nezu? For an untrained eye he would look totally fine and composed, drinking tea from a teacup that he conjured from somewhere with his eldritch powers. For the woman that worked with him for a few years at this point it was clear that he was barely holding back. The slight ticks of his tail, the slight tremble of the cup in his hands. He was this close from exploding, probably holding back only because of the rather somber tone of what was happening.

"Well then… it's time for me to go…" Hearing that, Midnight directed her attention back at the recording, the older woman standing at attention like a soldier with her right fist on her chest, just over her heart. "Goodbye Izuku. May the goddess of fortune smile upon you in your new life. Show them all what the High Commander of the Royal Legion can do! Ever upwards! EXCELSIOR!" The older woman bellowed, striking herself in the chest with a large grin as a few tears silently slid down her wrinkled face.

With the holographic screen disappearing in a shower of light particles the only other sound in the room was the low hum of power coming from the still active shield around the Titan. With its semi transparent surface they could see how the steel giant's body was being slowly restored, his arms already starting to form. It was only a matter of time before his body would be fully restored.

"Midnight, secure the area. Nobody except the ones present is allowed in the fifty meters vicinity of this hangar." Breaking the silence, Nezu ordered. "Hatsume-kun, Luna, could you two escort little Eri back into the medical wing? I believe that she shouldn't be moving as of yet." He continued, causing the small white robot to try ushering the two back to the infirmary with the pink haired girl reluctantly allowing it to happen.

For a few moments the Principal considered asking the two Yaoyorozus to vacate too but after observing them for a few more seconds he decided against it. Knowing this family as good as he did he was more than sure than nothing short of All Might himself would be able to achieve that anyway.

"Shield-kun, any thoughts?" He asked, walking closer to the still slumped teen. The aura of tiredness that the young girl emanated was something impressive, nothing on the level of her homeroom teacher but still…

"I just want to sleep… How am I supposed to react to the knowledge that one of my friends is some kind of legendary warrior who fought against hordes of aliens? That his home was so devastated that they needed to escape the planet?" The blonde asked with a huff, rubbing her tired face with the palms of her hands.

"Yes, that's a rather heavy thing to discover. I was more curious about your thoughts on what is happening to Knight right now, if it's safe." The Chimera clarified.

"And how am I supposed to know that?! I don't know jack shit on how this forcefield works! How is this thing generated? What's its purpose? What is happening in there? All I know is what we can see and it's that Izuku's body is getting somehow repaired!" Melissa exploded, starting to rant at the Principal who patiently listened. "That Hatsume called this thing a Nano Forge so it's probably just that. It's clearly based on nanotechnology, practically identical to what Izuku uses. Unless you want me to start poking something like this, I suggest just letting it do what it does…." She huffed once more, calming down.

"Sometimes waiting is all one can do…" Nezu sighed, looking back to his blonde student from the sci-fi spectacle in the room.

"Yeah… I know that. It's just so frustrating to not be able to do anything…" Scratching her head in irritation, Melissa tried not to grimace too much at how useless she felt during the fight. All the gadgets and gizmos that she so painstakingly prepared were barely enough to be an annoyance when a real villain entered the scene. She always knew that she wouldn't be the strongest or the best but hitting such a solid wall on her way was a bitter reminder that she couldn't engineer her way around everything.

At least not unless she would cross the line of more 'deadly' weaponry.

That was the one thing that she hoped to never do. She wanted to develop a way to become a hero, not a war machine. Her suit could be called a weapon but all the equipment on it was created with the thought of being as non lethal as physically possible.

The sole thought of aiming a potentially fatal weapon at someone made her stomach churn, the visage of that young man from I-island immediately flashing before her eyes.

Focusing back on Knight's half obstructed body she didn't know what to think. It was obvious that without the heavy weaponry that both Izukus wielded back then it would be impossible to take back her home, to rescue her father and the rest of the people on the island. Knight didn't even hesitate to whip out a rotary cannon at Timey, ready to turn him into paste just to protect his family. She would not want to see what even a single shell from his weapon would do to a human being, the torn and crushed remains of the robots were graphic enough.

Was it because he was a soldier, even if he doesn't remember that? Was he fighting for so long that it was second nature to him? The message that they listened to certainly implied that.

Now when she thought about it Momo didn't hesitate to pull out a gun on Mei either. The blonde inventor clearly remembered how apprehensive her raven haired friend was about using or creating firearms. She started to use smooth bore weapons with non lethal bullets in the end, like in the sports festival, but during the island incident she created more and more lethal weapons. If Wolfram would make even a single mistake back then Momo could have killed him with how viciously they fought.

Was she the only one seeing how crazy such a thing is?

"David-kun asked for you to contact him, he's worried about you." The Principal took her out of her thoughts, causing the young girl to wince slightly at the fact that she forgot to contact her father after the whole ordeal.

"I'll do that, thank you." She replied, slowly getting off of the workbench she was leaning on.

Looking back at her best friend, she was more than certain that there was no force in this universe that was strong enough to drag the ravenette away from this room at this point. Whatever that 'Nano Forge' was doing didn't seem to be ending soon either, at least from what she could see and deduce.

Stretching slightly, Melissa didn't bother to suppress a yawn that inevitably escaped her lips. The last two days were way too 'exciting' for her liking, maybe taking a short nap was the best thing she could do at this moment.

"I assume that you three will remain here for the time being?" Nezu asked, gesturing to the mother and daughter duo.

"I guess so…" She replied, already trying to find something comfortable to rest on. To her surprise she did find a camp bed tucked slightly behind a few crates, a really welcoming thick blanket and a fluffy looking pillow were on it too. Even the oil stains and a bit of grease that were on the bedding didn't look that bad at the moment. "I'll contact my father first though, I made him wait long enough." She sighed, sleep would have to wait for a few more minutes.

"I'll leave you to that then, there's a few things that need my attention. Please inform me or Kayama-kun if anything happens."

Nodding to the white chimera she watched for a few seconds as the principal walked out of the room. Yawning once more, Melissa walked up to a workstation that Mei was about to use when she waltzed in earlier. Idly she noted that there was one of Luna's drones laying on the desk, as if left there in a hurry. She would need to talk with her daughter about leaving them around like that.

Looking over the screens as the computer booted up, her eyes landed on Knight's body that was still under repairs. The enormous endoskeleton of his arms seemed to be finished already, the thin and bone-like limbs looking out of place on the otherwise armored and bulky body.

Logging in to her own server she dialed her father's communicator, eager to see him after everything that happened lately. A bit of normalcy would be really good at the moment.

XxXxXxX

Author's Note: Hello! Expositions! Expositions everywhere! I feel that I could do much better with this chapter, but decided against the third rewrite. It's so frustrating, not being able to write down your ideas as they come. Action should pick up slightly in the next chapters, I'm at least 7,32% sure it will :D

Please have a wonderful day!

Now then… Back into the grinder…